Biographies

Thomas KolditzProfessor Thomas A. Kolditz

Director of the Leadership Development Program
Yale School of Management

Tom Kolditz teams with fellow faculty to enhance leader development at the Yale School of Management. His experience as a leading development expert spans four decades in the public, private, and social sectors.

A retired brigadier general and titled Professor Emeritus by the U.S. Military Academy, Tom led the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point, for 12 years. In that role, he was responsible for teaching, research, and outreach activities in management, leader development science, psychology, and sociology. A highly experienced global leader, General Kolditz has more than 26 years in leader roles on four continents. His career has focused both on leading organizations and studying leadership and leadership policy across sectors. He served for two years as a leadership and human resources policy analyst in the Pentagon, and a year as a concept developer in the Center for Army Leadership, and was the founding director of the West Point Leadership Center. He was instrumental in the design and formation of the Thayer Leader Development Group, and is the managing member of Saxon Castle LLC, a leader development consultancy.

Professor Kolditz is an internationally recognized expert on crisis leadership and leadership in extreme contexts and in the development of programs to inculcate leadership and leader development in everything from project teams to large organizations. He has published extensively across a diverse array of academic and leadership trade journals, and serves on the editorial and advisory boards of several academic journals. He is a fellow in the American Psychological Association and is a member of the Academy of Management. In 2007, while still on active duty, Tom was appointed a visiting professor at the Yale School of Management, where he designed a crisis leadership course and taught in the school's MBA curriculum for three years.

His most recent book, 'In Extremis Leadership: Leading as if Your Life Depended on It', was based on more than 175 interviews taken on the ground in Iraq during combat operations. He has been named as a leadership Thought Leader by the Leader to Leader Institute and as a Top Leader Development Professional by Leadership Excellence. In 2009, he was named to the Council of Senior Advisors, Future of Executive Development Forum, and currently serves as the Academic in Residence for the Global Leadership Strategy Network.

Joel KleinJoel Klein

In January 2011, Joel I. Klein became CEO of the Education Division (now called Amplify) and Executive Vice President at News Corporation, where he also serves on the Board of Directors.

Prior to that, Mr. Klein was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education where he oversaw a system of over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. He launched Children First in 2002, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance.

He is a former Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, Inc., a media company, and served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until September 2000, and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993-1995. Mr. Klein entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Klein received his BA from Columbia University where he graduated magna cum laude in 1967, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971, also graduating magna cum laude. He has received honorary degrees from Amherst College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Fordham Law School, Georgetown Law Center, Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, Manhattanville College, New York Law School, Pace University and St. John’s School of Education. He was selected by Time Magazine as one of Ten People who Mattered in 1999, by U.S. News and World Report as One of America’s 20 Best Leaders in 2006, and was given the prestigious NYU Lewis Rudin Award in 2009 and Manhattan Institute Alexander Hamilton Award in 2011.

Ned LamontNed Lamont '80

Founder and Chairman
Lamont Digital Systems, Inc.

Ned Lamont is Founder and Chairman of Lamont Digital Systems, a privately held company which provide telecommunications services to over one million college students on 250 college campuses. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, CT. He previously taught at Yale School of Management, Harvard Institute of Politics, and Harding High in Bridgeport, CT.

Ned was the Democratic candidate of US Senate from Connecticut in 2006, winning the primary against incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman and then losing to him in the general election. He was also a candidate for Governor of Connecticut in 2010, albeit briefly.

Ned serves on the Board of Mercy Corp, a $400million NGO which focuses on economic development and entrepreneurship in the Middle East. He is also on the boards of The Yale School of Management, Conservation Services Group, the nation’s largest residential energy efficiency company, the Connecticut Council on Education Reform, and The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Ned’s wife Annie is a partner at Oak Investment Partners, where she invests in financial services and healthcare.

Jennifer C. NilesJennifer C. Niles '98

Founder and Head of School
E.L. Haynes Public Charter School

Jennie Niles is the Founder of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School. E.L. Haynes’ mission is for every one of its students to reach high levels of academic achievement and be prepared to succeed at the college of his or her choice. In April 2008, E.L. Haynes was chosen from DC’s 56 charter schools as the recipient of Fight for Children’s first-ever Quality Schools Initiative award. The school was ranked 6th among a consortium of 99 charter schools nationwide and, as such, was also the winner of a Silver-Gain Award from New Leaders for New Schools’ Effective Practice Incentive Community grant program. In June 2003, Ms. Niles finished her fellowship with New Leaders for New Schools, an intensive, year-long program to prepare urban principals. New American Schools sponsored her through her fellowship, supported the development of the charter application, and housed the start-up of the school. Prior to New Leaders, she was the Director of Education Initiatives at The Ball Foundation of Glen Ellyn, IL, an operating foundation that partners with school districts to increase student achievement through systemic reform. Before that, Ms. Niles headed the Charter School Office for the Connecticut State Department of Education where she oversaw all aspects of the charter school program and led a multi-disciplinary team to create the accountability system. Ms. Niles also taught middle school and high school science and directed service learning programs at schools in California and Massachusetts. Ms. Niles holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University, a Masters in Public and Private Management from the Yale School of Management, and a Masters of Science in Public Administration with a focus on Educational Administration from Trinity University (DC). In 2010, she was named as a Fellow in the Aspen Institute and NewSchools Venture Fund’s prestigious Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellowship Program.

Peter SaloveyPeter Salovey PhD '86

President & Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology
Yale University

Peter Salovey is the 23rd president of Yale University and the Chris Argyris Professor of Psychology.

After receiving an A.B. (psychology) and A.M. (sociology) from Stanford University in 1980 with departmental honors and university distinction, Salovey earned three degrees at Yale in psychology: an M.S. (1983), M.Phil (1984), and Ph.D. (1986). He served as Yale’s provost from October 2008 to January 2013, and is the only Yale president to serve as dean of the graduate school (2003-2004), dean of Yale College (2004 -2008) and provost.

Salovey has authored or edited over a dozen books translated into eleven languages and published hundreds of journal articles and essays in his field of social psychology. With John D. Mayer, he developed a broad framework called “Emotional Intelligence,” the theory that people have a wide range of measurable emotional skills that profoundly affect their thinking and action.

In addition to teaching and mentoring scores of graduate students, Salovey has won both the William Clyde DeVane Medal for Distinguished Scholarship and Teaching in Yale College and the Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013.